TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s high court has denied the latest appeal of a man scheduled to be executed Thursday for two 1983 slayings.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled Friday in the case of Michael Lambrix, who was convicted of murder in the killings of Clarence Moore and Aleisha Bryant.
Prosecutors said he killed them after an evening of drinking at his trailer near LaBelle, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Fort Myers.
Lambrix’s attorneys claimed his death sentence was unconstitutional because the jury recommendation wasn’t unanimous.
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But Lambrix was sentenced before a 2002 U.S. Supreme ruling that only juries, not judges, could impose the death penalty.
In cases of a death sentence imposed by a non-unanimous jury, Florida’s high court only grants new sentence hearings for those sentenced after that ruling.